Reading, Writing & Arithmeticizing About Video Games

Splinter Cell

Well folks, here it is. The first entry on the list that is part of the stealth genre. Boy, do I have a lot to say about Stealth, most of it petty and demeaning.

Whoa, HSkey! (you might be saying). Didn’t you claim that you would try and be as optimistic as possible when blogging about these games? Isn’t the whole point that these are your TOP 500 games? Or is this just an outlet for you to whine and complain?

Look, it’s a combination of all those things and Stealth games can go jump in a lake, at night, with no splash so as not to arouse any suspicion from the guards.

I am awful at being sneaky, and I’m well aware that I already have downplayed my ability to play puzzle games. And platformers. Am I good at anything? Why do I even play? Apparently the only two things you can enjoy while lacking any kind of skill are sex and golf. Whoever said that hasn’t played a single round of golf, by the way. I’ve seen people quit before they leave the parking lot.

Splinter Cell has a lot going for it; Michael Ironside lent his no-bullshit, gravel eating voice to Sam Fisher. The whole concept is awesome; you’re half James Bond, half ninja trying to survive and thrive in a world of political, military and economic intrigue. The shadows are as much your weapon as your pistol and being extra limber, you can use a lot of cool parkour moves to get the drop on enemy guards, literally.

Nobody will suspect a thing! This is the perfect hiding spot.

There’s also a handy “shadow” meter bar that’s supposed to show how hard it is for enemies to see you. BUT SURPRISE, SURPRISE the enemy ALWAYS seemed to know where I was and were virtually immune to my horribly aimed bullets.

The smarter player would tap me on the shoulder and tell me that I’m not even SUPPOSED to use my gun half the time, and that maybe the guards wouldn’t be alerted if I hid the bodies like I’m supposed to.

I get that. No, really. But it’s like telling a cat not to chase a mouse. If I have a gun in a video game, and I think I can get away with it, I’m going to use it. Oh sure, I can do the aerial splits in a narrow hallway so the maintenance guy or whatever won’t get spooked, but surely he’d look up anyway? And if I saw a few of the lights randomly get shot out in my office, one at a time, I’d run for the hills.

So, in conclusion, I’m calling it Splinter Cell because I don’t believe that Tom Clancy has so much clout that he deserves his name in every title of every product he’s ever inspired. You think Shigeru Miyamoto’s Super Mario Bros. sounds right? Deserved, maybe, but that’s why we have marketing teams who you THINK would tell Tom to chill and take a page out of Sam Fisher’s work. You know, if a job’s done right, people won’t even know you were there.